Judge dismisses claim against Carmel manager

BANGOR – A federal magistrate has dismissed a claim that the Carmel town manager violated the due-process rights of a town resident whose property was sold at auction, but the federal judge sent questions about who owns the property to a lower court.

At issue is a 70-acre vacant lot near Route 2 and the Irish Road that the town purchased at a sheriff’s auction, bidding $40,000 to offset penalties assessed to the owner, Earle McSorley.

Earlier this year, McSorley sued the town and manager Thomas Richmond claiming two things: that the town improperly acquired the land and that Richmond failed to provide due process in the disposition of the property.

In his lawsuit, McSorley questioned the town’s right, title and interest in the property. He claimed that he was not personally served notification of the auction, that the town failed to pay a deposit allowing it to bid and that Richmond was not authorized to make a bid.

In a ruling dated Dec. 5, U.S. Magistrate Judge Margaret Kravchuk didn’t take up the ownership issue, instead sending it to the Penobscot County Superior Court to decide.

Kravchuk dismissed the second count, ruling that while McSorley was entitled to reasonable notification of the auction, it wasn’t Richmond’s responsibility to provide it. And she noted that Richmond’s participation in the auction did not “transgress any of Mr. McSorley’s ‘fundamental’ rights and liberties” as McSorley claimed.

Richmond, reached at the town office Tuesday, said he was overjoyed by the decision but not surprised.

“I never felt this case had any merits from the very beginning,” he said.

Richmond said he hoped they would be moving quickly to a conclusion on this case, bringing the town closer to closure in these and other issues.

Intertwined have been issues about gravel pits on Horseback Road. In 1998, school district officials felt the gravel pits were encroaching on the road. The town filed suit five years later and eventually purchased the parcels of two of the owners. A legal case involving the third owner, Donald Hewes, currently is in Penobscot County Superior Court and could be resolved in the next few months, Richmond said.

Potentially complicating matters is that McSorley’s wife, Glennis McSorley, a party-in-interest in the lawsuit, was town manager for 30 years until the Carmel Board of Selectmen fired her in 1998. She was elected to the Board of Selectmen in 2000.